


Love Lost

by alidiabin



Category: Pan Am
Genre: Female Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-29
Updated: 2012-09-29
Packaged: 2017-11-15 07:26:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/524693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alidiabin/pseuds/alidiabin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maggie tells Colette how she would have handled a woman like Evelyn Straton.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Lost

Maggie Ryan stood at the other end of the cabin. She was close enough to Colette and John's wife to know that Evelyn knew, but not quite close enough to hear them. Colette's facial expression told enough of the story. Maggie watched as Colette's perfect Pan Am smile dropped when Evelyn spoke issuing her warning.

"Poor thing," Kate muttered as she watched the scene from even further afar than Maggie, "She really liked John, too."

"What happened?" Laura asked as she admired the now empty plane. Maggie shook her head, having yet to decide if she liked the naïve little Cameron. Maggie listened as Kate gave Laura enough of an answer to stifle her curiosity, but without revealing too much about Colette's personal life.

Evelyn brushed past them with a frown plastered across her face. Kate and Laura thanked her for flying Pan Am, but she was not listening. Maggie headed toward Colette who was holding a piece of paper.

"If it were me," Maggie declared as Colette sat down holding little Tommy's picture, "I'd have told her exactly what her husband was doing, while she played happy housewife. I'd have told her that when she killed the weasel, I'd help her hide the body, after all he lied to me too."

"I think she has enough to deal with," Colette responded diplomatically, even though she had considered telling Evelyn that it should be John she had the conversation with. The revelation that Evelyn had known the whole time had been so sudden, that Colette had not had a chance to issue comebacks or even a defence. She had just been left to look like a lost little girl.

"Oh she won't deal with this," Maggie answered as if she knew exactly what Evelyn was thinking. She didn't of course, but had seen enough similar situations to know what usually happened. "These housewifely types don't. They wouldn't know what to do without a husband, so they keep it together for the sake of the children. I doubt she will even talk to him about it. Look at the Cameron's that's a whole lifetime of repressed feelings and not talking."

"Well, they have a child," Colette replied as she ran her hands over Tommy's drawing. She tried to put herself in the same position, but having grown up without parents and having never been close to marriage, she could not. She could not even muster sympathy for Evelyn. "It is understandable."

"Did you ask him that?" Maggie uttered, seemingly changing the subject. "Usually if you change the subject to their kids, then they reveal the wife."

"We did not talk much," Colette said, finally smiling.

She and John had on a plane bound to Rome. They had begun to talk when Colette gave him directions to his hotel, which coincidently was the same one she was staying at. He had offered to share a cab with her, but she had refused saying that she had things to do on the plane before she could go to her hotel. In the end, they had bumped into each other in the lobby; Colette was not sure how accidental their second meeting was, but did not care. It was only after he had devoured her in the connecting bathroom of their hotel rooms, that she even considered the fact he was not single. However, she had not brought it up, preferring to enjoy the rest of the evening with him before flying back to New York the next morning. It was only supposed to be for the night, she told herself. She had no intention of seeing him again. He had asked for her phone number out of politeness, not because he intended to call.

"Oh," Maggie responded raising her eyebrows, having had similar relationships before. Both women burst into laughter, hoping it proved to be the best medicine for the situation.

"Perhaps, I should have checked," Colette muttered, returning the blame to herself.

"Perhaps, he shouldn't have been cheating on his wife in the first place," Maggie answered, reminding her friend that John was the one at fault, not her. Well, not really as John had never disclosed his marital status.

"It is just," Colette paused before shaking her head dismissing her own thoughts and waving her hands as she did, "Non, it is silly."

"It's lonely up here in the sky," Maggie answered, admitting something they seldom talked about.

"We go to all these wonderful places, and see all these beautiful things," Colette continued.

She almost stopped herself, biting her lip, as she wondering when she had become so ungrateful. Only a handful of women had opportunities like hers, and Colette knew that on college campuses and shopping centres across the world there were masses girls who would kill for her life.

"But there is no one to come home too," Maggie admitted, revealing one of the trade-offs of their job.

Yes, they got to see the world and experience it in every possible way, but the big wide world could not keep you warm at night, and the big wide world did not give them little Christmas presents. For Maggie and Colette, it was even harder because unlike the Cameron sisters, they did not have parents or siblings or even family money to fall back on. If they made a mess, they would have to clean it up. If something bad happened, they alone would have to deal with the consequences. They had spent most of their lives without someone holding their hands, and had gotten used to it. It was the fact that they were both all alone, which kept them from falling out over the important things. They disagreed on many things from politics to adherence to Pan Am's dress code, but they both knew they could lean on each other if times got tough.

"Your apartment is always full of people," Colette cried.

Colette had visited just once and been invited into an argument about fascism in mainland Europe by one of Maggie's friends who only wore black and discussed Ayn Rynd at great length. Colette knew what they were talking about, having read Marx and his contemporaries, when she was younger and finding her feet in the world. However, she preferred to enjoy the positive and more shallower aspects of life rather than reflect on the deeper meanings. If she started reflecting on the deeper meanings she would only get herself into a state, she needed to believe in the good of the world to continue to function in it.

"It's not the same," Maggie responded, knowing that Sam and his friends were mooching off her even if they meant well. She enjoyed having a full house, but sometimes wished she had a different type of guest.

"What did you poison him with?" Colette asked, breaking the silence that had fallen over the cabin, as they both got lost in their musings. The question returned the levity to the empty cabin, and the pair of them put their sadness away.

"He'll be spending all night in the bathroom," Maggie told her friend, as she placed a reassuring hand over hers, in an unusual act of sympathy "And we'll be spending all night on this damn plane if we don't hurry up. We can't be late to Laura's first debriefing."


End file.
